Are They Worried About the Price of Lettuce? ?

usaforklift asked:


Question #1: Housing prices down, oil prices down, commodities prices generally down … Further! With all the job losses, do you think labor costs are going to be rising? Then why is the Fed worried about inflation, to the extent that they slowly and incrementally and hesitantly drop the Fed Funds rate when we have a wholesale financial crisis going on? Are they worried about the price of lettuce?

Reference #1: NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil fell 4 percent to below $57 a barrel on Wednesday as the U.S. government hacked its global demand growth forecast again due to the slumping global economy.

OPEC officials, concerned about the oil’s steep drop from record highs over $147 a barrel per day (bpd) in July, said the cartel could possibly decide by the end of the month to cut production again to raise prices.

U.S. crude fell $2.51 to $56.82 a barrel at 13:15 p.m. EST, after touching $56.35, the lowest since March 20, 2007. London Brent crude traded down $2.50 to $53.21 a barrel.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration chopped its 2009 output outlook by 740,000 bpd, with total demand expected to average 85.93 million bpd next year compared with estimates of 85.89 million bpd for this year.

Demand in the United States, the world’s biggest consumer of oil, was expected to fall by more than 1 million bpd for the first time since 1980 this year, the EIA said.